1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a maintenance analysis and instruction system particularly useful for a retail center such as a grocery store. In preferred aspects, the invention provides systems and methods that comprise a portable device that can instruct a retail center or other worker to attend to various incidents that may occur at a retail center or other location such as product spills, and systems and methods for maintaining an accurate and reliable record of sweeping, mopping and other tasks completed at the retail center. In another preferred aspect, the invention provides systems and methods for accurately tracking work completed at the retail center or other location such as sweeping, spill clean-up or inspection of various areas of the retail center or other location.
2. Background
Retail centers such as grocery stores constantly experience breakage and spills of products. For example, in grocery stores glass containers may be knocked off shelves by shoppers and fall and break on the ground to send fluid and/or solid materials across an area of the store floor. Such an incident may be hazardous to persons within the store, e.g., a shopper may slip on the spilled material. This could result in injury to the shopper as well as potential liability for the store owner.
Current maintenance procedures in a retail center such as a grocery store typically include a more or less regular sweeping or mopping of floors during the store's operation. That practice is designed to help ensure the store floors remain free of spilled materials or other potential hazards.
Once an accident occurs within a grocery store or other retail center, however, it is often difficult if not practically impossible to verify that the store has been maintained in a safe manner, e.g. in the case of a slip and fall-type accident, that the store's floors have been regularly and uniformly cleaned to ensure that no debris remains on the floor surface for an extended period. For instance, often workers who clean the floors may have limited English language skills and therefore it will be difficult to keep accurate written records of a maintenance schedule. Additionally, store workers are often interrupted during the course of regular duties to attend to various tasks such as unloading delivery trucks, cleaning of a product spill and the like. Such constant interruptions again make keeping of accurate records of cleaning (e.g. sweeping) and inspection of floors and other maintenance work difficult if not impossible.
Additionally, retail center maintenance workers could be aided by some type of guidance relating to various tasks performed. For example, in the case of a spill pick up, it may be desirable to provide a worker safety tips or reminder of disposal procedures to ensure the worker carries out the cleaning job in a safe manner and according to desired procedures. However, it is typically difficult to convey such information on a regular basis, particularly for those workers with limited English language skills.
It thus would be desirable to have a system that could conveniently and accurately record maintenance of a retail center such as a grocery store, including where a worker may be interrupted during the work day from carrying out maintenance duties. It would be further desirable to have a system that could provide a maintenance worker guidance for conducting various task such as cleaning of a product spill, sweeping, mopping, etc.